


Too Hot, Too Cold, Just Right

by Snickfic



Series: The Fairy Tale 'Verse [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Magic, F/M, Knotting, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-07
Updated: 2012-11-07
Packaged: 2017-11-18 04:00:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/556672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/pseuds/Snickfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An omega doesn’t get to be Jo’s age and still unmated without being very good at making plans.</p><p>Sam was plan C.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Hot, Too Cold, Just Right

**Author's Note:**

> Prior Jo/Garth, contemplated Jo/Dean.

An omega doesn’t get to be Jo’s age and still unmated without being very good at making plans.

Plan A was Jo’d spend her heat with Garth, like she has every six months for a couple of years now. He’s a goofy one, no question, but there’s a good-naturedness about him that comes through even when they’re both caught deep in the throes of her heat. Afterwards, he makes her breakfast, if Pop Tarts and Coke counts as breakfast. (It doesn’t, but it takes the worst post-heat edge off until Jo can get herself to a Denny’s for a few plates of actual food.) He’s a solid guy; Jo _likes_ him, in a safe, friendly sort of way. 

It figures he’d go get himself mated. He calls Jo up with three weeks to spare, his apology awkward but sincere. Maybe his omega will let him play platonic knotting friend later, but the relationship’s too new now. Jo gets it.

It isn’t like Jo hasn’t thought about this, one possibility among many for why Garth might not be available when she needed him. This is by far the happiest possibility; the others mostly involved death or dismemberment.

Time for Plan B, then. She doesn’t like it – when it comes to her heat, she doesn’t like _any_ of her plans – but it beats the alternatives. That’s what she tells herself as she scrubs gore out of her jacket and jeans. Garth called her while she was still shaking in the aftermath of a truly gruesome rawhead hunt. Once she’s clean, maybe had a decent sleep, she’ll make the call.

She’s chewing on a granola bar, too zonked to go out for a meal, when her cell rings. It’s Sam, saving her the trouble of calling. “Jo, hey.”

“Hey.” She allows herself a smile, despite what she’s about to do next. “What’s up?” 

Nothing’s up, it turns out. It’s purely a check-in call. He’s been making them more often lately since Jo saved his and Dean’s asses a couple of months back – since she kissed him that once. Truth is, not all her calls to him have been strictly business, either. He’s been smart enough not to point that out.

“So hey,” Jo says finally, “is Dean around? I’ve got a gear that’s slipping – I think my transmission might be going out.”

Sam laughs – at this point it’s a shared joke, how crap he is at cars – and hands her over to Dean.

“Dean, listen. I’m going into heat in a few weeks, and I hear you can help.”

There’s a long pause. Finally, Dean clears his throat and says, “I don’t think that’s gonna to do squat for your transmission.” 

“I don’t want Sam to know.”

“Uh, right. Give me a minute, I’ve got the numbers of some mechanics out in the glove compartment.” There’s another pause. A door closes in Jo’s ear. Distantly she hears traffic, and then another door shutting – the familiar squeaky slam of the Impala. “Jo, are you serious?”

“Tamara says... after Isaac. You helped.” Not just Tamara. There aren’t a lot of unattached omegas, but half of them seem to be intimately acquainted with Dean Winchester. On an ongoing basis, in some cases, which is about the best recommendation Jo knows.

Dean blows out a breath. “Yeah, okay, I did. But are you sure it’s me you want? I’ve got Sam right here—”

“No.”

“Jo, I swear, you break my brother’s heart—”

Jo feels a traitorous flutter, hearing Dean confirm more in one half-sentence than she and Sam have in a year of joint hunts and casual phone calls. Jo ignores the flutter; she can’t afford crushy teenage feelings now. “It’s none of his business. It’s my heat, and I have to deal with it, and I’m dealing with it.”

Dean hesitates, and Jo thinks maybe she’s lost him. Eventually he says, “Okay. Yeah. When do you need me?”

Jo gives him a date with a couple of days to spare, just in case. They agree on a location. Dean doesn’t seem to think he’ll have any trouble kicking Sam loose for a few days; if Dean does this for a lot of omegas, then Jo supposes Sam’s used to it by now.

Just before they hang up, Dean says, “But look, about Sam—”

“Leave it,” Jo says, and ends the call.

\--

For the next few weeks, Jo ignores Sam’s voice mails. She texts him a couple of times – [ _I’m fine, the hunt’s a bitch._ ] – and otherwise tries not to think about him. After her heat, then she can think about him. 

She calls Dean from a payphone once, just to confirm.

\--

Three days out, Jo calls Dean again. Sam answers. “It’s like the flu of the century,” he says. “I haven’t seen Dean this sick since we were kids. Is this still about your transmission? I can have him call you back the next time he’s lucid, or I can take a message...” 

Jo scowls at the dash of her truck. She has time yet. For now there’s only a hot gentle murmur of blood down low and a nagging urge to piss. She’ll sleep tonight without help, if she puts her mind to it; tomorrow night she’ll have to get herself off first, and the night after she’ll get no sleep at all without a knot in her.

Plan D is to spend the heat alone. She did that once, before Garth. Going it alone was still better than getting slammed into a wall by the least gross-looking alpha in the bar and then lying knotted on the grimy bathroom floor. It wasn’t better by much, though. Not to mention an omega had better be damn certain of her security before trying it; she’d be broadcasting to every alpha for miles.

Jo weighs her options and makes her decision. Plan C it is. “Look,” she tells Sam. “I’m going into heat in a couple of days. Can you help?”

“Oh.” There’s a pause. “Um, sure, yeah. We’re in Akron—”

“I know.” It was where Dean had promised to be when she’d called him three weeks ago. “Give me the address; I should be there tomorrow.” She was parked at a gas station outside Grove City; she could get to them in a couple of hours. No point in headstarting the awkward, though.

\--

Sam meets her outside the front office, hands stuck resolutely in his pockets. “You really don’t want to come in our room,” he says. “I mean, I’ve got to be contagious, too. Are you sure you want me breathing all over you?”

Jo shrugs. “By tomorrow I won’t know the difference.”

“Right,” Sam says, nodding at the ground. Jo’s tempted to apologize, to offer him an out. It’s a little late to put together the logistics for Plan D, though. 

Instead she says, “Is Dean going to be okay without his nursemaid?”

Sam’s gaze snaps up to hers. “Dean’ll be fine,” he says. “He just needs to drink plenty of fluids and sleep for about two weeks. I’ll check on him when I can.”

“Good.” She didn’t like this plan to begin with, but a plan that left Dean dying of plague would have been worse. “I’m gonna go get a room.”

“Sure.”

“I’m holing up for tonight, but I’ll text you my room number. Come by tomorrow morning, I guess?” She’d need him by then.

“Yeah, okay.”

Jo studies him, but there doesn’t seem to be much else to say. Except maybe the obvious. “Sam, thanks.”

“No problem.” 

There’s something in his tone that Jo can’t quite believe, but she’s committed now. 

\--

Jo’s sprawled out on the bed watching _Nick at Nite_ reruns – and didn’t they used to have good shows on this channel? Does thinking that make her old? – when a knock comes on her door. Jo rolls off the bed to her feet, snagging a revolver as she goes. She braces herself, barrel aimed at the door. “Yeah?”

“Jo?” It’s Sam. 

Jo huffs, clicks the safety back on, and tucks her gun in the back of her jeans. She slides the security chain open and unlocks the door. She blinks. Sam’s signature musk is as unique as any alpha’s, and on a regular day it’s already more appealing than some. However, _appealing_ isn’t close to the word right now. Jo closes her eyes against a sudden dizzying wave of want. “Hold on a minute,” she says on an exhale. Holding her breath, she grabs her jacket from where it’s lying on the bed and digs her keys from the pocket. Normals carry pepper spray on their key chains; Jo carries her emergency hypo spray. She spritzes herself on the upper lip, and then hands it to Sam so he can do the same. She inhales the astringent bitterness: wormwood and rue.

Tomorrow, nothing short of a knockout spray would block Sam’s scent, but tonight, the rue would be enough.

“Okay,” Jo says, collapsing onto the bed again. “So what’s up?”

Sam, also spritzed, sits at the foot of the bed. “Um, is there anything I should know, for tomorrow?”

Jo is stricken by a sudden awful thought. “You’ve done this before, right? Knotted an omega in heat?” She supposes it’s possible he hasn’t; he’s in his mid-twenties, after all, but there are only so many unattached omegas around.

“No, yeah, I’ve done it. I mean, do you have any ground rules?”

Jo laughs. “Does it matter?” But that’s not fair, to Sam or Dean or Garth or even her dad. It isn’t that alphas can’t hold onto a certain amount of control, even with an omega in heat. It’s what most of them choose to do with the control that’s the issue. “No permanent damage, okay? Temporary marking’s fine. I’m not really into dirty talk.” She laughs again. Like it’s going to matter tomorrow, to her or anyone, what she’s _into_.

“Dirty talk?”

“How I’m such a slut, all slick and hungry for your knot, just an omega bitch who needs put in her place. You know. It gets old.”

Sam nods solemnly. The fact that he isn’t wide-eyed and horrified goes some small way towards reassuring her. Whatever his jitters are, this isn’t his first pony ride.

“Look, I’m sorry.” Not that this is her fault, not that it’s even remotely what she’d have chosen, but it doesn’t make her any happier about involving Sam in it.

“Sorry for what?”

“For dragging you into this. That you got stuck with heat duty.”

“‘Stuck’ with it?” 

Jo looks up and sees something in his eyes she can’t deal with. She chooses to read it as lust. “You’re all the same,” she says, which is a flat lie. “Can’t wait to tie me, can you?”

“That wasn’t—”

“The ground rules clear enough?” Jo asks. “Because my hypo’s wearing thin, and if you don’t scram I’m going to lose my head before I have to.”

\--

The next morning, earlier than she’d like, Jo wakes up to the feeling of an anxious throb through her clit. The room is already thick with sour-salt-wet smell of an omega in heat. Fantastic.

She takes a cold shower; it’ll be her last hygienic act for several days. She puts on a loose t-shirt and a pair of sweats, no underwear, which is as close as her wardrobe comes to easy access clothing. She forces down a canned protein shake that she’ll be glad for later, along with a dose of contraceptive potion, the last in a series she’s been taking for a week. In this, at least, she’s one up on the Normals: magic can no more stop a heat than a net can hold back the tide, but at least it can keep all the fish out. 

It’s nine o’clock on the hour when Jo hears the knock on her door. “Just a minute!” She checks the peephole to see that it’s Sam. She takes a deep breath and catches a whiff of him through the door – clearly the seal isn’t exactly airtight.

“Jo?”

Damn it, Harvelle.

She swings the door open. And yeah, clearly _airtight_ isn’t even in the ballpark, because Sam’s pupils are already blown and the way he leans over the threshold like he’s following the swing of the door has got to be involuntary. “Come on in,” she says.

He stumbles as much as he walks. As soon as he’s inside, she closes the door and locks all the locks. For just a moment she stands there, face an inch from the door. She doesn’t dare breathe, because it’ll all be over then, but she gives her heart a moment to beat just a couple more times.

When she turns, Sam is _right there_. His half-lidded gaze is fixed somewhere near the top of her head, and his chest is heaving with each powerful intake of breath. 

God, he’s huge. It’s not something she’s ever given much thought to, beyond plain utility; as long as you’re on Sam’s side in whatever battle’s waging, all that size and strength is your ally. Now, she feels an honest-to-God shiver run down her, a shiver that starts in cold fear at the base of her neck and is boiling with want by the time it reaches bottom of her spine. 

Her lungs are tight, hungry for air. She takes a breath.

Her senses roar, every one, her nose most of all as Sam’s scent goes straight to her lizard brain and sets fire to it. He’s everything she wants, every huge inch of him, and most especially that prodigious knot in his jeans that he’s not hiding at all just now.

She grips his shirt in both hands. His hands land on her shoulders, and with what tiny portion of her brain remains, she realizes he was waiting for a signal from her. Hell, she’ll give him a signal. “Fuck me,” she says raggedly.

There’s some stumbling and some kissing that really just means him applying his mouth to her mouth, helped along by saliva, and then she’s sprawled out on her back on the motel bed and Sam’s sliding her sweats down her hips with his huge huge hands. After he gets them down most of the way, she kicks them off. Meanwhile he’s fumbling with his jeans button, and maybe it’s just the fact that she’s been through this more than him, but she manages to get it open for him and shoves the jeans partway down his ass. 

Sam Winchester goes commando, at least today, because there it is, that dick her fevered brain kept imagining in her dreams last night. It’s hot and thick and glistening and gorgeous, and she needs it _now_. Her skin’ll fry if she doesn’t; her fluids will just keep leaking out her cunt, salty and wet, until she’s a parched well.

It seems Sam feels the same. He pushes her down onto the bed again, crawls on top of her, and thrusts.

That’s all it takes, this first time. All the built-up pressure rolls through and out her cunt in waves. She yells, pushing at Sam’s shoulders just for something to stabilize her through it. She’s barely ridden out the orgasm when Sam comes with a sharp grunt, and she feels it: his swollen spurting knot, filling her to the brim.

As it ever so slowly begins to deflate, she does, too, falling against the bed. She gasps for breath. So does Sam. He settles on top of her with a groan like a house settling on its foundations. For a moment it’s suffocation, it’s the sweet sweet death of sheer massive weight, and then he seems to remember. Slow, awkward, he rolls them both over on their sides so her face is pressed into his still-clothed chest.

The awful frenzied need in her veins begins to still. Sam’s knot in her is still full and hard, and it will be for a long time yet – a half an hour at least, probably more, this first time. Her body’s been building up to this for almost six months, and his for nearly a day. The part of her that’s closed around that knot is wetly, achingly satisfied with this. The rest of her has started to notice the way Sam’s arms surround her, closing her in, and is fighting hard against irrational, learned panic.

His size is not an asset now.

He’s talking, she realizes. His mouth touches her hair, and he’s murmuring words she can’t catch. A phrase comes clear – _so gorgeous_ \- and the last of her pleasant afterglow goes cold. Ice forms in the pit of her stomach.

“No talking,” she snaps, slamming her palm against his chest.

There’s a pause, a catch of breath that she feels all the way down to his diaphragm, and then his lips are pressed to her hair again. Silent, this time, which gives her enough to pretend with.

Forty minutes after, Sam’s knot is finally small enough to pull off of. He grunts as she does it. His expression is vague, but he blinks at her and his brow furrows. “Okay?” he says finally.

Close enough. “Okay,” she says.

They’re both filmed with sweat and spattered with other, richer juices; they’re wrung dry. Jo can’t be bothered to get under the covers. She pulls the edge of the comforter over on top of herself and sleeps.

\--

They knot a couple more times and sleep in between and drink bottles of water Sam refills from the bathroom sink. She never sees him do it, but she wakes up after another long stretch of dreamless sleep and there they are again, drops still glint on the outside.

“You okay for a few minutes?” Sam asks. He’s sitting on the end of the bed. Looking closer, she realizes he’s clutching his jeans.

“Sure,” she croaks. She makes a face at the sound and grabs for the water bottle.

“I, uh. I want to go check on Dean.”

A chuckles sneaks out of Jo. “Hope Dean’s sinuses are shot,” she says. “You smell like a brothel.” As she says it, she takes another sniff to confirm, and that low-grade buzz under her skin starts to pick up. No, she tells herself, and sinks deeper into the mattress. Not yet.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Like you have nothing to do with that.”

It’s like old times, like they haven’t just fucked each other ragged for hours on end. Like he hasn’t seen the weakest, most useless part of her now. “I’m not the one who has to go face your brother.”

Sam just shakes his head, smiling despite himself. Then he tries to put on his pants, and Jo laughs again, because it’s like he’s all thumbs with a few spares besides. Serves him right for wearing something as complicated and unforgiving as denim to a knotting date.

Finally he makes it out the door, promising to be back in a few. Jo lies back, boneless, and tries to hang onto that feeling of well-being. She can feel it slipping her through her fingers as need begins to build in her again.

\--

It’s hours before Sam comes back. Or only thirty minutes, possibly; Jo’s sense of time is shot, along with just about every other skill she has. Her only comfort is that biology dictates he _will_ come back, he’s keyed into her heat now, and his hormones won’t cool down again until hers do, a couple of days from now. When he finally does show up, the knotting that follows is rough and urgent. 

Afterwards, his knot still locked in her, he tucks her up against him and folds the comforter over them both. The habitual panic starts to close in on her, and she mashes her face to his chest and breathes him in. This is Sam. He’s safe. He won’t hurt her. Safe.

Slowly the scent memory drains away the claustrophobia. She begins to hope that she’ll fall asleep. 

“Jo?” The soft words are warm against the top of her head.

“Yeah?”

“Is it... am I really that awful?”

Jo blinks at the darkness. “What?”

“I can tell you’re not enjoying this.”

Jo laughs. The sound is as bitter as her rue. “Did you expect me to?”

There’s a pause. “Well, yeah.”

“Are _you_ enjoying it?”

“If I thought you were, I would be.”

Another laugh escapes. “God, you’re a picky bastard.”

There’s a longer pause. “So, is it me, then?”

There’s way more in the question than a guy feeling vulnerable about his performance. “It’s not you,” Jo says. She presses her forehead against him. “I hate it, is all.”

“Oh.” His chest heaves with the intake of his breath. Very softly, he says, “I’m sorry.”

Bizarrely, tears prickle in her eyes. “It’d suck more if you weren’t here.”

“Then... then I’m glad I’m here.”

\--

There’s no variety in knotting, except eventually her cunt is tender with an ache that goes way beyond pleasant and the gentlest touch to her clit brings tears. Her stomach pinches with hunger she’s too gone to do anything about, even if she could keep food down, which she knows from past experience she can’t.

She’s filthy and wrung out and used, and all she can do those last hours is lie back and let Sam follow his blood. Part of her is glad he’s still able. The only time her nerves lie still is when his knot’s in her, holding her down, locking her in.

He’s almost as exhausted as she is, and there’s no pleasure left in it for him any more than there is for her. There’s only need.

\--

Until finally the need is gone, ebbing from her so gradually she hardly notices until she comes awake realizing she hasn’t been fucked in hours and yet only wants, more than anything, to piss. Gingerly she gets to her feet. It feels like every muscle she has is strained. She lost her t-shirt at some point, so she staggers to the bathroom buck naked. Once she pisses, the next thing her body suggests to her, ever so meekly, is a shower. She takes a tepid one, because hot water sluicing down into her crotch would probably make her scream.

She pats herself dry very, very carefully.

Now she’s starving, and her mouth is bone-dry, despite all the rehydration. She walks back out into the motel room and blinks at the stench. Then she blinks at Sam, stretched out on his side with his eyes pinched shut. 

She’s sorry, again, that she put him through this. Sorrier than before it started. Dean would have understood. She’d have bought him a decent bottle of whiskey after it was over and said thank you, and they’d have been clear until next time, if a next time came.

Sam, she doesn’t know how to thank or to apologize to.

She writes him a note. It reads like every stilted post-Christmas thank-you her mother ever made her write. It’s barely better than nothing, but it _is_ better.

She puts on clothes, which she’ll have to change again in a restroom down the road; these will have soaked up the funk of heat sex before she even gets out the door. She chews through three protein bars. She packs her two duffels. Then, because Bill Harvelle didn’t raise a coward – or not much of one – she sits on the bed next to Sam, very gently, leans over through earthy organic reek that surrounds him, and kisses his cheek. Her breath hitches for no good reason, and she swallows against a stupid, irrational burning in her eyes.

His flutter open. It takes a moment, but eventually they focus on her. “Hey,” he says. His voice is like gravel.

“Hey,” she says, and her voice almost cracks. “Hey, I’m taking off, but I wanted to say thank you, again.”

“You’re leaving?” He pushes at the bed, trying to sit up.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to get up.” She presses on his shoulder until he falls back, looking confused. “Look, I’m sorry you got dragged into this, but like I said, I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, staring up at her like if he concentrates hard enough he’ll see something other than Joanna Beth Harvelle. His hand hovers drunkenly in the air until it finds hers, and he squeezes. “Can I ask a question?”

Wary, Jo says, “Uh, I guess so.”

Fixing his eyes firmly on their joined hands, Sam asks, “Why did you ask Dean first?” 

Jo hears the unspoken question underneath. There are so many answers she could give, and so many of them would shut him down, lock him out of this topic for good. Out of her life, even, and there’s a part of her that finds that tempting. It’d mean he wouldn’t look at her with that that earnestness that she knows he’s going to turn on her any minute now.

Instead, she gathers all her courage together. “Sam, I like you,” she begins.

He nods at the floor. “Just not as well as you like Dean.”

“God, Sam, just shut up.” Jo says. That startles Sam enough that he shuts his mouth and looks her in the eye. “I like you, and I _hate_ getting knotted, and I hate being in heat. And I didn’t want to mix stuff I liked with stuff I hated. I didn’t—” Her voice cracks, and she swallows hard. “I didn’t want to ruin it.”

“Ruin what?” he asks softly.

“How the fuck do I know? This.” Jo gestures back and forth between them. “Whatever this is.” 

“Oh.” Sam lets that syllable hang there long enough that Jo dares actually look at him. His expression is soft. It takes Jo a moment to recognize what she’s seeing as hope.

“Anyway,” Jo says, abruptly even more done with this fare-thee-well crap than she was before. She pulls her hand loose. “Give a call if you need me on a hunt. Or whatever.”

“Okay,” he says.

She picks up her two duffels and then turns to wave a last goodbye. He’s staring at her, brow knit, but after a moment he waves back, just a single curl of his fingers.

Then she’s out the door and gone.

\--

After a few days the sore, use-worn remains of Jo Harvelle knit themselves together again. She calls her mother, an Ellen mandate after every heat, to say that she’s all right. She hunts a ghoul.

She doesn’t get in touch with Sam. She hasn’t _needed_ to, not for hunting, and she can’t think of what else to talk to him about. 

He doesn’t call her, either. A couple of weeks later, though, he texts. [ _Near Twin Cities. Northfield. Are you close?_ ]

She considers the text for a while. Finally she replies, [ _Hunt?_ ]

The answer comes almost immediately. [ _Already torched the ghost. Thought we could meet up._ ]

She’s in tiny Newton, Kansas, where what police were calling a wild dog attack has turned out, in fact, to have been caused by wild dogs. She chews on her lip, and finally she texts back, [ _Send me address, I’ll be there tomorrow._ ]

\--

Sam meets her at a non-descript diner on the edge of town. She’s already sipping on her reconstituted hot chocolate when he slides into the booth across from her. He gives her a weak smile, and she returns it. The waiter comes and takes his order – just coffee, Jo notices, a safe, non-committal choice. When the waiter’s gone, Sam hunkers down, elbows to the table, and fidgets with a half-and-half.

Jo sips on her cocoa and waits. This is not her show.

Finally, Sam clears his throat. “Okay, so this is going to sound weird. And I swear, I’m not going to get weird, I’m not trying make like the... like what we did a couple weeks ago was a commitment or anything.”

“Oka-ay,” Jo says.

Sam peers fixedly at his hands. “I hate that when, um, when we were together, it was awful for you. And I want to make it up to you.”

“I... Sam. Yeah, I mostly hated it. I always hate my heats. But I didn’t hate _you_. You were really sweet about. Well. Everything.”

Sam looks like he’d like to respond to that, but then he shakes his head and says, “Still. I’d really like if there were something I could do that you wouldn’t hate. Or maybe something you’d like to do to me? When we’re both in our right minds, and can choose.” He peers up at her from under his eyebrows, cautious, hopeful. “I’m, uh. I had a girlfriend when I was in college, you know?”

“Jess.” Jo’s heard her mentioned once or twice. She knows Jess died in a magical fire, that the Winchesters eventually killed the alpha bastard who did it.

“Did you know she was a Normal?”

“I didn’t really think about it,” Jo says. “Wait, a _Normal_? How did you..? When you... How did she not know about your knot?”

“It’s complicated,” Sam says, just the tiniest bit smug. “The short version is, I got, um. I got really good at other things.” He gives her a grin that’s positively wicked. Then it falls away, and he adds, “So if there’s something you want... No strings attached. We don’t ever to talk about it again, if you don’t want to.”

“Why?” Jo asks, because it’s all she can think of to say.

He looks her in the eye and says, “Because when you think of me, I don’t want you to just think about sex that you hated.”

“Oh,” says Jo faintly. There’s more feeling behind his words than she knows how to deal with.

“But, I mean, no pressure.”

Jo gives it some thought. She knows roughly the sorts of things he’s offering. Her half-year of college, playing Normal and experimenting with every possible flavor of it, netted her a few encounters with boys willing to put out pretty much however she wanted if it eventually meant getting in her pants. She hadn’t cared about any of them, though, and she knew they didn’t give a rat’s ass about her.

Distantly she can imagine possibly wanting some of those things with Sam, someday. Just now, the thought of it is like fabric on skin scraped raw: too much. Not to mention her libido is always nil the first month or so after a heat.

But Sam’s still waiting, patient and hopeful and earnest. Part of Jo doesn’t want to let him down; she wants to make him happy for a little while if she can, in thanks for how he gave up his body and three days of his life for her. 

Part of her, though, just wants _him_ in some broad, sweeping way of which lust is just a tiny fraction. It’s not a realization she’s let herself have before. She’s not really sure what to do with it now that she’s had it.

Just now, though, there is one thing she thinks she’d like. “Yeah, okay,” she says. “Could we get out of here?”

Sam almost falls over, he’s on his feet so fast. He pulls out his wallet and throws down a couple of bucks, and she does the same. They walk the couple of blocks to the motel, Sam texting Dean as he goes.

Jo is skeptical. “That’s all it takes to kick him out? One text message?” 

Sam gives her a slantwise, shifty look. “This time, yeah.”

They find the motel room empty – it’s bizarrely normal, given the Winchesters’ usual accommodations – and Sam closes the door. “So, um.” He gestures towards the nearest bed, and they sit down on the edge of it. He gives her an expectant, encouraging smile.

“Could...” And now Jo’s blushing, which is damned embarrassing, in the circumstances. “Could we just make out some, maybe?”

He lights up, all dimples and grin. “Really?”

She beats down the defensiveness that rises at the question. Kissing’s not something she’s ever gotten to do much of, for fun or profit. “Really. But no strings attached,” she adds, because she can. They can negotiate that point later.

Sam’s expression doesn’t even dim. “No strings,” he promises.

For a minute they just sort of angle toward each other, awkward as a couple of chickens. One of Sam’s hands lands on her shoulder and falls off, and he laughs. “You first?”

“Okay.” Jo takes a breath. Sam bends down a little, but he leaves it to her to close the distance between them. His mouth is warm, and his lips are chapped a bit from the April chill. When he opens up, just a little, he tastes like coffee and too much creamer. 

It’s quiet, this contact. It doesn’t rip through like a flash flood, leaving ugly gouges in the earth of her. It doesn’t crash over her like a tsunami, uprooting all the defenses she’s grown. It’s like a spring in the mountains, cold and sweet, seeping up just a trickle at a time. Just enough. 

[end]


End file.
